Fallen soldiers mourned online

She signed the online memorial for the first time on Aug. 26, 2005, about four weeks after Pfc. Robert Swaney died in Iraq.

She signed the online memorial for the first time on Aug. 26, 2005, about four weeks after Pfc. Robert Swaney died in Iraq.

She remembered bringing him home from the hospital as a baby, she wrote, and how proud she was to have a son like him.

Renee Miller of West Jefferson posted another message on the guestbook Feb. 6, 2006. Then three times in a week in March. She posted twice on April 22. She posted for Easter, for his birthday. As the anniversary of his death approached, she wrote, "Well, Robert, here I am sitting and thinking about you and crying."

She has gone through stretches where she has signed his online memorial every day. She signed on Thursday.

"A lot of people would probably say I am crazy for doing this," Miller said in an interview. "When I'm writing the messages, I feel like Robbie is seeing them."

People use the guest books at the "In Remembrance" section of Legacy.com, the biggest of several online memorial sites, to talk to their fallen soldiers, Marines, airmen and sailors. They use them to express condolences to the family. They use them to talk to other people who have signed the guest book, to let them know they appreciate the kind of community the guest book has created.

People Renee Miller doesn't know have signed her son's guest book. There are a few who have signed every guest book of every American military member killed in the war on terror.

Marine Reserve Lance Cpl. Eric Bernholtz, a member of Columbus-based Lima Co., died in Iraq on Aug. 3, 2005. His fiancee, Erica Scott, signed the guest book of Pfc. Jacob Spann of Westerville, who was a member of another unit killed six months later. She addressed part of her message to Spann's girlfriend, to offer support, because she knew what the young woman was going through.

Spann's mother, Deborah Nealon, read Erica Scott's entry. She read Daniel Casteneda's. Casteneda had been her son's team leader in Iraq. She read one from her old friend, Susan, whom she hadn't heard from in years, and got back in touch with her.

"I do read them," Nealon said. "I have to be in a certain mindset so I don't fall apart."

She hasn't written in the guest book herself, but since Memorial Day, she's been thinking she might, to let people know more about her son and to thank them for remembering him.

Bernholtz's father, Jim, has signed his son's guest book twice, and used one message to address everyone else who had signed. He wanted them to know that a friend of the family had died, but he also used it to talk about his family's strong faith.

"We know that Eric is in heaven," said Cathy Bernholtz, talking about her husband's guest-book entries. "It's important for my husband to express that."

Legacy.com, which hosts obituaries for hundreds of newspapers online, including The Dispatch, launched its free "In Remembrance" section for fallen troops in March 2005. It's had 7 million page views since, and about 200,000 guest-book entries.

It's the big memorial site, the one with the corporate backing and the most elaborate Web pages. But there are others.

Tim Rivera, a 26-year-old letter carrier in suburban Atlanta, started his site, fallenheroesmemorial.com, in 2003 after he heard about the first casualties from Iraq. His brother served there with the Air Force, and Rivera started thinking about what he might do if something happened to his brother.

He thought he might design a memorial Web site. Then he thought, if I can do it for him, I might be able to do it for everyone.

Anytime the Department of Defense announces a death, Rivera now adds a page for that person.

"I remember when there were 100 names listed, and that seemed like a lot," he said. There are now 2,624 listed from Iraq and 328 from Operation Enduring Freedom.

Robert Swaney has a page there, too. Another man named Robert Swaney, who is from California and has a son in Iraq, has posted. Rivera has signed. He signs them all.

There is the sense, said the family members, that there's some extended community of grief, even if the community can be anonymous.

"The ones that touch me the most are the ones who didn't even know Robbie," his mother said.

Renee Miller reads those messages, and she appreciates them. But to her, the guest book is most important as a part of a conversation.

"This is my way of telling him how I am feeling," she said. "This is what I need to do."